It’s this week that I put in my yearly plug for the Living New Deal, a beautiful map and repository of over 16,000 sites—buildings, roads, schools, post offices, and more—constructed by the various “alphabet agencies” of the New Deal. One of those sites, as I have told you on this very website, is the inimitable O’Harra Stadium at the South Dakota School of Mines:
Yes, those are bleachers on one side of the field, and 250 parking spaces in three tiers on the other side. Beginning with a school initiative to build a new stadium and aided by thousands in federal dollars to put unemployed men back to work during the New Deal, the South Dakota School of Mines completed O’Harra Stadium in 1938, with local limestone providing the rip-rap lining the parking spaces of the upper tier, Black Hills timber making up the guard railings, and donations from the Northwestern Railway Company and Homestake Mining Corporation making up the original track.
So why lead with this? This week, because [reasons], the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference kicks off football—maybe South Dakota’s a swing state and NEEDS football back. I dunno.
But that does give us a chance to highlight one of the greatest rivalries in football, the BLACK HILLS BRAWL.
You see in 1895, when South Dakota was just six years old, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, as it was then known, hosted a nearby Methodist college named Black Hills College after Spearfish Normal College—the nearby teachers’ school—turned them down. While that game isn’t counted in the official records and the Methodist college went belly-up, Mines and Spearfish Normal, now Black Hills State University, use the 1895 meeting to declare themselves tied for the oldest D-II rivalry with the Battle of the Ravine.
Back when SBNation put out just bitchin’ journalism, like, all the time, Ryan Nanni visited the Black Hills Brawl, now on its 135th iteration:
The story’s a classic in college football: teachers against engineers, lawyers against miners, the liberal arts against STEM, those who can do against those who teach. You should absolutely read Ryan’s story, and—not to spoil too much below—you should absolutely check it out on the university-sponsored stream.
So, if just for one night, your eyes ought to be on the Black Hills, where these regional rivals come together and, in a stadium located on a former dump and swine feeding field, do battle with thousands tailgating, seated in the bleachers, hanging onto the local bragging rights that come with the Homestake Trophy.
So why lead with the New Deal?
This is where, if I were a history professor or something, I’d treat you to a rambling dissertation on Richard White’s It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, a 1991 classic that went to painstaking lengths not only to refute the long-dead thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner (that the process of the frontier moving westward defined the people and democracy of America)—without mentioning Turner or the “frontier” at all—but insist that the West, a land of multiculturalism and competition for resources, aiding white settlement through the constant intervention of the federal government.
Natives giving you problems? Here’s a broken treaty, a war if needed, and a new treaty slicing off more of the Great Sioux Reservation.
Rivers flooding or land too dry west of the 100th meridian? Here’s a great big dam or a huge canal, all to irrigate your farms.
Cement costing you too much because you live in the middle of nowhere? Build and operate a state-run cement plant. [No, seriously.]
The point is, when you zoom in on these cities, even in western South Dakota, you have the stink of big government all over you. When you drive your truck into O’Harra Stadium the second the gates open, pop the tailgate, and crack a Busch Light, you’re parking on the work of hundreds, if not thousands, of federal workers nearly 90 years ago.
Turns out those federal workers played quite a role in building Rapid City into what it is today.
And, of course, one of those dots is O’Harra Stadium:
It’s an amazing looking stadium, and someday I fully intend to park a truck there and watch the Black Hills Brawl, albeit perhaps with a Crow Peak IPA in hand—city boy, you know, and that’s a damn good beer—and enjoy the scenery. Enjoy the smell of the grill and the sounds of football. Enjoy what the New Deal hath wrought.
Thursday
Don’t Watch This
{MLB} Oakland Athletics vs. Houston Astros [2:35pm, TBS]
{MLB} Tampa Bay Rays at New York Yankees [6:10pm, TBS]
{NFL} Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Chicago Bears [7:20pm, FOX/NFL]
{MLB} Los Angeles Dodgers at San Diego Padres [8:08pm, MLBN]
Watch That
Tulane Green Wave at Houston Cougars
6:30pm | ESPN | Hou -6.5 | O/U 59
{UEFA} Georgia vs. Belarus
11am | ESPN3 | Euro Qualifiers
{MLB} Atlanta Braves vs. Miami Marlins
1:08pm | FS1 | ATL leads, 2-0
{UEFA} England vs. Wales
2pm | ESPN+ | Friendly
As I prep this for publication on Thursday morning, I am looking out over an auditorium of 25 students taking a midterm.
Honestly, there’s one here who I thought had dropped the class. I’m sure things will go fine for him.
Dana Holgorsen and the Cougars are playing their first game of the year tonight, after their whole non-conference slate—potential bangers with Wazzu, Baylor, and North Texas—was scuttled: the first due to the Pac-12’s conference-wide cancellation of football, the latter two due to team-wide outbreaks.
Holgorsen has handled this as well as you would expect a middle-aged man with a long, thinning mullet and a visor to handle it.
DWT;WT Team of Choice Tulane has benched starting QB Deon Howard in favor of freshman Michael Pratt, who has done...well, exactly what you’d ask of a Green Wave QB: go 9-for-19 throwing the ball, but hit your big plays for touchdowns (a 32- and 42-yarder in a 66-24 romp in the Battle for Dixie). Meanwhile, the Cougars continue moving on from D’Eriq King with Clayton Tune, who needs to cut down on the turnovers from 2019 but still has a bevy of talented playmakers at the skill positions, including WR Marquez Stevenson.
There are going to be big plays in this one—blown coverages, random Tulane heave-and-prays that go for 50 and a score, Stevenson just blowing by fools. It’s an excellent study in simultaneous contrasts and similarities in an approach to football. Go Wave.
Poll
Thursday night. What’s on?
This poll is closed
-
23%
Tulane-Houston!
-
39%
I’ll see how many Brady puts up on the Bears, thanks.
-
19%
MLB is on, and I do enjoy when the Yankees lose...
-
17%
...so we just not gonna talk about your dumb ass recommending Georgia-Belarus, MNW? GO DWAGS.
Friday
Don’t Watch This
Watch That
Louisville Cardinals at Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
6pm | ESPN | Lou -4.5 | O/U 64
{EFL} Fleetwood Town FC vs. Hull City
1:45pm | ESPN+
{NBA} Miami Heat vs. Los Angeles Lakers
8pm | ABC | LAL -7 | O/U 216 | LAL leads 3-1
I cannot be assed to tell you more about Friday night.
You see, I have grades due, three Zoom review sessions for another midterm at my other school of employment (and boy are these ones cranky), an interview for spring semester employment at 2pm, and a 2021-22 job application to get out by 4pm.
Things are great, why do you ask?
Anywho, more importantly, this Friday the wife and I are doing Oktoberfest. We did it last year, and oh my word, guys:
This year we’ve finished a new 16’ diameter patio/bonfire pit in our backyard, and the polka music (no, seriously) is gonna rage until we both pass out around 8:30pm, y’all. Here’s the beer list (as of now):
- Dangerous Man (Mpls) Festbier
- Wicked Wort (Robbinsdale) Oktoberfest
- Shakopee Brewhall Mandala Imperial Marzen
- AEGIR (Elk River) Der Kraken Octofest
Still taking suggestions for more Minnesota Oktoberfest styles to pick up. I need at least 2-3 more crowlers or singles. Leave ‘em in the comments.
Poll
An underwhelming Friday of TV...
This poll is closed
-
28%
Louisville-Ramblin’ Wreck, sure...
-
13%
NBA for me
-
7%
Maybe I’ll finish some yardwork
-
50%
Screw that, I’m showing up unannounced at MNW’s
Saturday Morning
Don’t Watch This
#4 Florida Gators (-6.5, O/U 57) at #21 Texas A&M Aggies [11am, ESPN]
Mizzou Tigers vs. #17 LSU Tigers (-14.5, O/U 54) [11am]
ULM Warhawks at Liberty Biberty (-19.5, O/U 61) [11am, ESPNU]
N.C. State Wolfpack at Virginia Cavaliers (-8.5, O/U 60.5) [11am, ACCN]
South Carolina Gamecocks (-13, O/U 41.5) at Vanderbilt Commodores [11am, SECN]
Duke Blue Devils (-2.5, O/U 51.5) at Syracuse Orange [11:30am, ESPN3]
Watch That
#22 Texas Longhorns vs. Oklahoma Sooners
11am | FOX | OU -2.5 | O/U 72
#18 Virginia Tech Hokies at #8 North Carolina Tar Heels
11am | ABC | UNC -5 | O/U 59
Faroe Islands vs. Latvia
11am | ESPN+ | UEFA Nations League Group D
You guys, we gotta talk about MY FAROESE, the story of the year that no one’s mentioning!
So to juice up its international slate, the European soccer folks decided, a couple years back, to devise a big ladder-style, pool play tournament and call it UEFA Nations League. Simple premise: Win your group, go up the ladder (grouped A down to D). Lose your group, get relegated. (Something we need in college football. Hi, Rutgers.)
That brings us to Group D. Much like watching a D-II rivalry game when Alabama is beating some poor SEC schlub on ESPN or CBS, you watch Group D because it’s a beautiful train wreck with sloppy finishing and weirdly-placed fields interspersed by moments of brilliance because this, damnit, is when the mini- and micro-nations of Europe—the Maltas, San Marinos, and Andorras of the world—get that win. And you can see what a win means to them; it puts behind them the 10-0 losses to Germany where the victors kindly require themselves to pass the ball 20 times before scoring.
That brings us to Group D, Pool 1, a group made up of soccer giants Andorra, Malta, Latvia...and the Faroe Islands.
Yes, the rocks in the Atlantic, owned by Denmark, with their own language. It is a dream of mine to stumble through my “eth” pronunciation as I watch the Landsliðið at the Tórsvøllur in Tórshavn, obviously.
This year? The Faroes stand at the top of Group D, Pool, 1, in the auto-promotion spot with a full 6 points out of 6 possible. With a win over second-best Latvia (2 pts), the Faroes would run no worse than 5 points clear of anyone else in the pool with a home date incoming against moribund Andorra that would all but seal promotion for these tiny rocks with 52,000 people and a bunch of puffins. Suck it, Bishop of Urgell, we’re coming for you.
Poll
Saturday morning, and we’ve got some good ones.
This poll is closed
-
42%
Gimme a shootout on the Red River
-
10%
#8 UNC? #18 VT? Calling bullshit here, and I’ll watch to prove it.
-
10%
GATA-AGGIE
-
28%
You’ve convinced me either to root for or against your Faroese, MNW. Soccer it is!
-
8%
Some other football game.
Saturday Afternoon
Don’t Watch This
The Citadel Bulldogs at Army Black Knights [12:30pm, CBSSN]
Chadron State Eagles at Colorado Mesa Mavericks [1pm, CMU link]
#14 Tennessee Volunteers at #3 Georgia Bulldogs (-12.5, O/U 43) [2:30pm, CBS]
UTSA Roadrunners at #15 BYU Cougars (-34.5, O/U 63.5) [2:30pm, ESPN2]
Central Arkansas Bears at Arkansas State Red Wolves [2:30pm, ESPN3]
Arkansas Razorbacks at #13 Auburn Tigers (-13.5, O/U 48) [3pm, SECN]
Pittsburgh Panthers (-6, O/U 43.5) at Boston College Eagles [3pm, ACCN]
Kansas State Wildcats at TCU Horned Frogs (-8.5, O/U 50) [3pm, FOX]
Florida Atlantic Owls (-2.5, O/U 57) at Southern Miss Golden Eagles [3pm, Stadium]
{UEFA} Spain vs. Switzerland [1:45pm, ESPN+]
{UEFA} Ukraine vs. Germany [1:45pm, ESPN+]
{MLS} Inter Miami vs. Houston Dynamo [4pm, UniMas]
Watch That
Texas Tech Red Raiders at #24 Iowa St. Cyclones
2:30pm | ABC | ISU -13 | O/U 64.5
Texas State Bobcats at Troy Trojans
2:30pm | ESPN3 | Troy -7.5 | O/U 63
Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders at FIU Sunblazers
3pm | ESPNU | FIU -4 | O/U 56.5
Do I really want to watch Iowa State-Texas Tech? No, as a matter of principle. But the Cyclones are either a team that loses to Louisiana or one that beats Oklahoma, I have no idea which, and I also like to lose a lot of money at Treasure Island because I think I have roulette figured out.
Otherwise, out there, there are points to be had in Texas State-Troy, and someone’s “oh” has got to go in MTSU-FIU. Bad football aplenty, now featuring ranked teams, too!
This is already too long, but I want to rote the positive development that is Central Arkansas-Arkansas State: First, ESPN has begun posting lines for FCS-FBS games, and I am SUPER jazzed about that. Second, there is a town about midway between Conway and featured-on-DWT;WT-Jonesboro called Bald Knob.
You guys.
Poll
Saturday afternoon?
This poll is closed
-
45%
Tortillas and Busch Light: Someone’s gotta live up to their reputation in Ames.
-
0%
Gimme the Sun Belt and the points in Troy.
-
5%
Blue Raiders and Golden Panthers? COUNT ME IN.
-
11%
It is me, here to convince you that Tennessee-Georgia is actually good football and not just an Alabama inferiority contest.
-
7%
I’m amazed you didn’t recommend Central Arkansas-Arkansas State: THE BATTLE FOR BALD KNOB.
-
29%
Uh...something else?
Saturday Evening
Don’t Watch This
East Carolina Pirates at South Florida Bulls (-4.5, O/U 55) [6pm, ESPN+]
#7 Miami Fluoride Hurricanes at #1 Clemson Tigers (-14, O/U 63) [6:30pm, ABC]
Florida State Seminoles at #5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (-20.5, O/U 52) [6:30pm, NBC]
UTEP Miners at Louisiana Tech Bulldogs (-14.5, O/U 52) [6:30pm, ESPN2]
Marshall Thundering Herd (-7, O/U 44.5) at Western Kentucky Hilltoppers [6:30pm, Stadium]
Mississippi State Bulldogs at Kentucky Wildcats (-2, O/U 58) [6:30pm, SECN]
{MLS} Atlanta United vs. New York Red Bulls [5pm, ESPN+]
Watch That
#2 Alabama Crimson Tide at Ole Miss Rebels
5pm | ESPN | Ala -24 | O/U 70
Temple Owls at Navy Midshipmen
5pm | CBSSN | Temple -3.5 | O/U 50.5
Black Hills State Yellow Jackets at South Dakota School of Mines Hardrockers
6pm | SDSM Link | BLACK HILLS BRAWL
Charlotte 49ers at North Texas Mean Green
7pm | ESPNU | UNC-C -3 | O/U 67.5
The in-laws are coming over—they invited themselves, of course—for a “birthday celebration” for me and the mother-in-law. We are expected to have a bonfire.
Does this mean I will cast the BLACK HILLS BRAWL onto the basement TV and use the bathroom so many times that the in-laws think I have a urinary tract infection? Reader, you know me so well.
If you watch any game featuring a ranked team tonight that is not Saban piss-pounding Kiffykins just because he can, you are irredeemable and dead to me.
But please keep clicking on DWT;WT—my cat needs new shoes.
Poll
Saturday evening television viewing, go:
This poll is closed
-
8%
Bama-Kiffy
-
12%
Temple-Navy should be a slobberknocker
-
28%
BLACK. HILLS. BRAWL.
-
0%
49ers-Mean Green
-
28%
I actually believe Miami Fluoride to be a good team, and thus will watch them lose by 20 to Clempson.
-
0%
Notre Dame, as I have an insatiable need to be a smug asshole.
-
4%
CLANGA-Kentucky should be stupid fun
-
8%
One of the many other CFB games.
-
12%
Maybe some baseball will be on...
It’s late and I’m drunk...
Don’t Watch This
{USL} El Paso Locomotive vs. FC Tulsa [8:30pm, ESPN+]
{MLS} Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Real Salt Lake [9pm, ESPN+]
Watch That
Phoenix Rising vs. Sacramento Republic
9:30pm | ESPN+
The only other serious part of this post: Here is how a league should handle instances of homophobia and racism in sports, as the USL did when Phoenix forward and Golden Boot winner Junior Flemmings hurled a homophobic slur at San Diego Loyal player (and forward Minnesota United midfielder!) Collin Martin:
If you think this might be lip service, look at how they’ve handled Junior Flemmings winning the #USL golden boot.
— Jeff Rueter (@jeffrueter) October 7, 2020
The league is taking this seriously. pic.twitter.com/WTSsAvD55b
Poll
It’s late, I’m drunk, so what’s on TV?
This poll is closed
-
14%
Watch the last of the football and pass out
-
20%
Watch the last of the football and start drinking heavily (heavilier?)
-
0%
Phoenix-Sacramento
-
2%
Vancouver-Real Salt Lake
-
2%
El Paso-Tulsa
-
5%
Some other sporting event you’ve forgotten about, MNW!
-
54%
lol i passed out hours ago
Enjoy the games, everybody.